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Saturday, September 25, 2010

Little Italy's Feast of San Gennaro on Mulberry St. is one of those annual NYC events you should do at least once every five years or so. Go with no expectations, meander (as best you can in the crowd) from Houston St. to Canal St., and savor the aroma of sausages, seafood and sweat commingling around you. This year's feast culminates on Sunday, September 26 (is it really already the last weekend in September???), with the Grand Procession of the Statue of San Gennaro at 2 p.m., led by actor Tony Lo Bianco (The Honeymoon Killers, The French Connection), the Grand Marshall.

I like to go on a week night, when it's typically less crowded, and met my friend Steven at Mulberry and Prince last Wednes-day, the final night of the summer. I got schooled on braciole (pronounced bra-zhul) and consumed a tasty one, dressed with broccoli rabe and sauteed onions, at Lucy's, where the proprietor kept shouting, "Fredo, you disappoint me, Fredo," while he charred the pork cutlet on the grill.

When a thunderstorm rolled in from the West, we waited it

out under the canopy of a gaming concession, where one of the available prizes was a stuffed Obama doll. Seeking a better shelter, we ended the wet evening at Ferrara, where we splurged on Tiramisu, an assortment of miniature pastries (cannoli, chocolate mignon and a chocolate mousse Dacquoise) and iced cappuccino.

With the storm over, we wandered west across Grand St., eventually making our way over to Seventh Ave., celebrating the arrival of fall at 11:09 p.m. as we walked uptown. At 23rd St. we could just make out through the cloud cover a fuzzy Jupiter under the (nearly) harvest moon. At a rate of once every five years or so, we'll be making two or three treks back to San Gennaro before Jupiter passes this close to Earth again in 2022.

Thursday, April 08, 2010

If I'd known they'd line up just to see him,I'd taken all my money and bought me a museum.

--Steve Martin, King Tut

This spring marks the return of the boy king, Tutankhamun, to New York -- or, more accurately, the return of artifacts from King Tut's tomb. The new exhibit, "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs," opens at the Discovery Times Square Exposition on April 23, following runs in Los Angeles, Chicago and other cities.

King Tut doesn't seem to have ignited the same cultural hoopla as on his first U.S. visit, from 1976 to 1979, when "Treasures of Tutankhamun" toured the country. That exhibit, which inspired Steve Martin's parody, drew 8 million people, breaking attendance records for a traveling exhibit. (In New York alone, 1.2 million people stood on long lines at the Met to see the show, according to The New York Times). So far the new U.S. touring exhibit has attracted 4 million visitors and has generated positive reviews.

The Met passed on hosting the new Tut exhibit here due to its policy of not charging a separate admission fee for special exhibits; however, it opened a complementary exhibit, "Tutankhamun’s Funeral," on March 16 that features about 60 objects used for Tut's mummification and burial. Most of these artifacts are from the Met's permanent collection and were instrumental to the 1922 discovery of King Tut's tomb by archaeologist Howard Carter. (For the full story, see the Met's exhibit Web page.) The exhibit runs through September 6.

But King Tut, who will end his New York (and U.S.) run on January 2, 2011, is hardly the only show in town this spring. Exhibits at the Guggenheim and the International Center of Photography provide perspective on artists in Paris in the early 20th century, while the Museum of the City of New York's "Only in New York" collection of photographs from LOOK magazine brings to life our hometown in the mid-century. The upcoming Henri Cartier-Bresson retrospective at MoMa offers an in-depth look at the entire 20th century, while a triennial and a biennial spotlight emerging art and design in the 21st century. If that's not enough time travel, visit with the Victorians in an exhibit that elevates the craft of scrapbooking to fine art. And you have just a little over two weeks to squeeze into MoMA's "Tim Burton" show. Here's a sampling of exhibits opening and closing in New York between now and June 1.

Navigation Tip: The exhibition title links directly to the exhibit Web site; the museum name links to the home page of the institution's Web site. All links will open in a new window or tab.

The first retrospective of the iconic photographer's work since his death in 2004, MoMA's exhibit will feature about 300 photographs spanning Cartier-Bresson's entire career. His early work "helped define the creative potential of modern photography," notes the exhibit's Web page, and his "uncanny ability to capture life on the run" has influenced photojournalism ever since, crystallizing the idea of "the decisive moment." It's fitting that MoMA should host this retrospective as it was the site, in 1947, of Cartier-Bresson's first major exhibit. The show, which runs through June 28, should be universally appealing given that "the vast majority of his photographs describe things that happen every day, for his essential subject was society and culture — civilization."

Most of the 130 objects featured in the exhibit had never been seen outside of Egypt before the current tour started and were not included in the 1970 tour, according to the exhibit's organizers. Advance ticket sales started on March 23; you can buy tickets for a specific date and entry time at the exhibit Web site. A slideshow preview of the exhibit is available on The New York Times' Web site.

Cooper-Hewitt's fourth Triennial -- the series launched in 2000 to spotlight "the most innovative designs at the center of contemporary culture" -- features works by designers exploring human and environmental problems across architecture, landscapes, fashion, graphics and new media. All of the featured projects were created between 2006 and 2009.

On view since November, this collection of photographs from the pages of LOOK magazine chronicles New York from the mid-1940s through the early 1960s, a time when, notes the exhibit Web site, "New York was both a newly emergent international capital of world-class museums and glamorous nightclubs as well as a hometown for millions who rode its subways and thrilled to its baseball teams." Extract "newly emergent" from that observation, and you have an apt description of New York for the ages.

Pulling together more than 700 works from the filmmaker's personal archives, including drawings, paintings, photographs, moving image works, concept art, storyboards, puppets, maquettes, costumes and cinematic ephemera, this exhibit has possibly gotten more hype than King Tut. The New York Times reported that as of mid-March, the show, which opened in November, had already had 450,000 visitors, despite lackluster reviews. Times art critic Ken Johnson called it "a let down" and "monotonous," and Ben Walters, writing for The Guardian's film blog, noted, "The peculiar thing about [the show] ... is how little effort its curators have made to glance backward or sideways to place Burton's work within a broader context."

Burton fans, however, writing on the "real-people-real-reviews" Web site Yelp.com, called the show "DEFINITELY worth seeing," "exquisite" and "AAHHMAAZINGGG!" (They also consistently complained about the shoulder-to-shoulder crowds.) Only a limited number of tickets are available at the door; buy them in advance for a specific date and entry time.

The 48 photographic collages from the 1860s and 1870s in this quirky exhibit represent a trend among educated, aristocratic Victorian women that might be equated with today's "scrapbooking." Mixing photographs with watercolors (and without the help of Photoshop), the results are "whimsical and fantastical, combining human heads and animal bodies, placing people into imaginary landscapes, and morphing faces into common household objects," notes the exhibit Web site.

What makes this significant is that photocollage is generally considered one of the beacons of modernism, but these gals were creating their collages some 50 years or so before Cubism. The New York Times art critic Roberta Smith wrote of the exhibit, "It suggests that women’s art history (a phrase I’m not entirely comfortable with, but never mind) is still only just beginning to be examined and understood."

This collection of 150 images, films, books, magazines and Surrealist ephemera cuts two ways, illustrating perceptions of Paris in the 1920s and '30s as well as surveying early Surrealism. Writing in The New York Times, art critic Ken Johnson noted that the photographers represented (such as Jacques-André Boiffard, Brassaï, Ilse Bing, André Kertész, Germaine Krull, Dora Maar and Man Ray) "were as preoccupied with what was being lost as with what might be gained by modernization." Nearly 100 years later, I find myself in a similar state of mind.

While the images no longer shock today as they did in the early 20th century, Johnson writes that the show is nonetheless "absorbing" for the way the images "set up poetic contrasts between the new and the old." He added: "Most straight photography registers an instant on the razor-fine edge between the past and the future, but in Surrealism that moment is more metaphorically loaded. The 'twilight' of the exhibition’s title has as much to do with the mistier regions of consciousness as with the borderlands of real-world time and space."

Tell your teen or tween that you're going to a Twilight exhibit and then introduce them to something truly surreal.

The 30-odd paintings and sculptures on view here provide another look at the Paris art scene in the early 20th century, when artists "united in their defiance of academicism" converged in the cultural capitol. Curated from the Guggenheim's permanent collection, it features works by Chagall, Picaso, Miro, Brancusi, Calder and others.

The Biennial is the show that New Yorkers love to hate, but the pared down, themeless 75th installment has actually gotten fairly good reviews. The New York Times art critic Holland Cotter wrote that it's "a solid and considered product," adding, "The show has dead spots, mainly where it reflects the retrenched art-about-art spirit of the day. But it also has strong work (particularly in video) that speaks of life beyond the art factory." New York Magazine's Jerry Saltz called it "the Obama Biennial: alternately moving and frustrating, challenging and disappointing — and a big improvement on what came before." Howard Halle, in Time Out New York, perhaps put it most plainly, stating this Biennial "doesn’t suck precisely because it doesn’t feel or look like your average Biennial."

For three days in May, the 26th through the 28th, the Whitney will remain open around the clock as part of featured artist Michael Asher's Biennial proposal (Asher actually wanted the museum open 24/7 for a full week, but the costs and personnel requirements of that were prohibitive). Web site NewYorkology reported that, in the audio guide to the exhibit, "co-curator Francesco Bonami refers to the concept as 'an intervention' to make the museum more accessible to people who can’t usually get there." It reminds me of the book From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankenweiler; it's not the Met, but you can spend the night in a museum without having to hide in the bathroom.

Thursday, April 01, 2010

After 84 years of continuous operation, CaswellMassey's beautifully-appointed flagship store at Lexington & 48th St. will close this Saturday, April 3, at 6:00 p.m.

At this point the store has only a fraction of its usual merchandise left on its shelves, but is worth a last-chance trip to see the gorgeous antique wood furnishings and to take advantage of a great deal: Sign up for its mailing list, and get a 25 percent discount on your in-store purchase. When I was there on March 18, I stocked up on Gardenia Body Lotion ($17), Bath Gel ($16) and Talc ($12); Almond & Aloe Body Balm ($18); Almond Talc ($12); and beautifully scented Oakmoss Luxury Liquid Soap ($25), all for about $75.

Caswell-Massey will re-open on April 21 as a stall in the new Limelight Marketplace, the retailing reinvention of the old Limelight nightclub at Sixth Ave. and 20th St. The size of the space, in the Limelight's "Apothecary" on the second level, will be something akin to the space allotted vendors at the holiday market at Grand Central; with the small footprint, it will carry only a limited amount of merchandise.

The company says the Limelight operation was already planned before the store closure, and it hopes to find a new location for its flagship retail store by later this year or early next. But it had to shutter too quickly to find an immediate replacement.

The store opened in 1926 in the old Barclay Hotel, now the InterContinental New York Barclay. Like so many closures these days, this one comes as a result of landlord greed -- or ignorance, perhaps. One source speculated that the hotel's owner, the U.K.-based InterContinental Hotels Group, is "European and doesn't understand the value of the store."

IHG told Caswell Massey late last year that it would not be renewing the store's lease due to plans to allow a financial institution to take over the space. "We believe their decision is quite regrettable, given the store’s historical and cultural value," Caswell-Massey wrote in a note published on its Facebook page. The store originally was told it would have to vacate by February 1.

Caswell-Massey used Facebook to reach out to its fans last December, asking customers to write Jim Abrahamson, president of IHG Americas in Atlanta, to protest the banishment. The company's nearly 1,400 Facebook fans must have had some effect; on January 9, Caswell-Massey reported that an IHG representative contacted the company, saying, "Please make all these complaints stop! It is causing all kinds of headaches around here." IHG ultimately agreed to extend the lease by an additional two months.

Alas, the company confirmed via Facebook last week that the closure is definite: "We did everything we could, but unfortunately sometimes not everything works out in one's favor." Plainly put.

Caswell Massey, one of the oldest American companies in existence (it was founded in Newport, R.I., in 1752), opened its first New York store in 1833 at the corner of Fifth Ave. and 25th St. The Lexington Ave. location is said to have served Greta Garbo, George Gershwin, the Astors, the Vanderbilts... And countless anonymous New Yorkers such as myself.

On a related note: We countless anonymous New Yorkers who like to pamper ourselves can choose from an array of $50 treatments all over town during Spa Week, April 12-18. In the tradition of Restaurant Week, spas around the city will offer a host of facials, body wraps, massages, waxing and more on a prix-fixe basis. Book your appointment now at the Spa Week Web site.

Site registration is required to view the entire list of participating locations, but some of the more alluring-sounding options are the 45-minute Dead Sea Salt Jewel Scrub at Ettia Holistic Day Spa on West 72nd St. and the 45-minute Raspberry and Rhubarb Seasonal Facial at L'Institut Sothys New York on West 57th.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

It promises to be a beautiful day for the St. Patrick's Day Parade on Fifth Avenue -- if you don't mind the crowds, you find amusement in the looks-like-that-dude's-going-to-keel-over-any-moment suspense, and you can overlook the politics of exclusion.

I went to the parade once, years ago. It was worth it at the time. I went to a lot of parades that year -- even the Labor Day Parade. I'd never lived anywhere that had so many parades: Labor Day, Columbus Day, Thanksgiving Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter...

These days, I'm ambivalent about New York's St. Patrick's Day Parade. I like the idea of the tradition; I like the idea of parades in general. But, I'd rather avoid the crowds, don't find drunkenness amusing and have mixed feelings about celebrating with a group commemorating pride, culture and nationalism that would so vehemently exclude fellow nationals based on their sexual orientation. Year after year, the New York City parade organizers continue to disallow LGBT groups from marching along with their fellow Irish. As the chairperson of Dublin Pride said this week, this attitude and practice are "deeply un-Irish."

At the same time, it's the organizers' prerogative to include who they want. I disagree with the decision, and I support the protesters who organize every year; that's my prerogative. Over the weekend, Buffalo, N.Y., hosted the first St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York State to include an LGBT group. Yep, Buffalo. NYC parade organizers, take note.

If you want to celebrate St. Paddy's Day, but wouldn't be caught dead near the parade, other options are available. Check out these resources for things to do and places to go to get your green on:

If you want to go the parade (your prerogative), bear in mind that NYPD says it will show no tolerance for public drinking this year. It starts at 11:00 a.m. at Fifth Ave. and 44th St. and continues up the avenue to 86th St. Get information on the route, street closings and the alcohol warning here.

Sunday, March 07, 2010

On my weekend outings with the dogs, I try to wander, breaking off our well-worn routes in Riverside Park or Central Park in the hopes of coming upon something I've never seen before. Today I was rewarded with the discovery of the Amiable Child Monument on Riverside Drive at 123rd St., just north of General Grant's Tomb.

One of only a few private burial sites on public lands in the city, it's a memorial to St. Claire Pollack, a five-year-old boy who in 1797, at the age of five, fell to his death on the cliffs of the Hudson River. The original monument was erected further down the hill, closer to the river and the actual site of the boy's death. It has been replaced twice due to deterioration; the current monument was erected in 1967 and is surrounded by a wrought-iron gate.

My discovery is hardly rare, as I've uncovered a number of blog posts and Web sites about it this afternoon. Nonetheless, the surprise of coming upon it on such a gorgeous, nearly-spring day, underscores how the city continually reveals itself unexpectedly, provoking you to view your own well-worn routes with new eyes.

More on the Amiable Child MonumentIn addition to the Riverside Park Fund's Web page about the monument (linked to above), check out Amiable Child (April 17, 2009), from the War of Yesterday blog, a detailed account of the memorial's history, including current and historic photos.

Thursday, March 04, 2010

Film Forum launches the Victor Fleming Film Festival tomorrow (Friday, March 5), providing the opportunity to see Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz, among other classics, on the big screen -- or at least, as big as it gets at Film Forum.

The two-week fest (March 5-18) kicks off with a double-feature of Red Dust and Bombshell, both starring Jean Harlow (Friday-Saturday). The The Wizard of Oz screens in a double with Captains Corageous March 7-8. GWTW is scheduled for four days, March 13-16; for a separate admission, you can make that a double-feature with The Wizard of Oz on the 13th and 14th. In all, the festival features 22 of the director's films starring the likes of Clara Bow, Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, Henry Fonda, and the list goes on. Check out the full schedule here.

I love these retro film fests at Film Forum. When I first moved to New York, in the early 80s, you could catch retro films at half a dozen or more indie theaters. You could camp out in the mezzanine seats, and smoke and drink, settle in, immerse yourself in four hours of consciously curated double bills. Sadly, most of those theaters are gone now; the few that survive have largely been reincarnated in another form.

The Metro, 100th & BroadwayNow empty and forlorn, but not demolished, the Metro of the 80s showed a mix of second-run and retro films. My friend Louis and I went to a devastating double-feature of Shoot the Moon and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Afterward we walked south on Broadway, and I vowed never to marry; just then, we saw Mariel Hemingway eating at a table-side window in a Chinese restaurant. Both of us being a little star-struck in those days, plus fans of Manhattan, the sighting saved us from a big, fat post-mortem pity-fest.

Theatre 80 St. Marks, 80 St. Marks PlaceRumors of a complete shutdown of this Jazz Age space surfaced last spring and, happily, proved wrong. The Otway family, which has owned it since 1965, recently re-opened it as a digital projection movie theater after leasing it to the Pearl Theatre Company for 15 years. Prior to that, Theatre 80 had booked great double-bills of classic films, rear-projected in 16mm. This was where I learned the pleasures of going to the movies alone, when I ventured out solo one cold Saturday for a double feature of Mildred Pierce and Double Indeminity.

St. Marks Cinema, 133 Second Ave.A great place for a contact high, the St. Marks dated back to around 1914 (or earlier?), when it was the Astor Theatre. It was an East Village mainstay in the 80s, with great late-night, double-feature picture shows. Over the New Year's holiday in 1985, my friend Steve and I loaded up on midnight snacks for a double of Diva and Stop Making Sense, during which we both enjoyed and, no doubt contributed to, the second-hand schmoke. Not long after, that grand old theater was replaced by a Gap store, which presaged the ongoing ruin of St. Mark's Place. Today it's a luxury condo building.

Other retro houses of note included:

Cinema Village (22 East 12th St.), which survives with the proud distinction of being the oldest continuously operated theaters in the Village and one of the oldest in the city. It was built in 1963 and, for about 30 years, featured double bills of classic and cult films. It was one of my favorites, partly for the smoking-allowed balcony seats, partly for its convenient location across the street from my office in the old Fairchild Publications building; you'd get a burger and a pint around the corner at the Cedar Tavern (yes, also gone), catch a double feature, then return to the Cedar to discuss. Balcony and location aside, it's line-up made it a standout. In the early 90s Cinema Village avoided the fate of its brethren by switching from a repertory format to a focus on contemporary indies, and it remains a standout.

The original Thalia (95th & Broadway), a classic retro theater that felt a bit like a basement screening room -- you had to get there early so you didn't end up in one of the aisle seats behind the gigantic columns. It closed in 1987, then reopened as the Leonard Nimoy Thalia within the performing arts center Symphony Space; it showcases independent films.

Bleecker Street Cinema (144 Bleecker St.), a Village landmark for cinephiles that fell prey to high rent and neighborhood politics in 1990.

The non-profit Film Forum has successfully navigated the ever-changing terrain, the ever-shifting priorities of New York development, and celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. The present Houston Street location is its fourth since it opened in 1970. My first visit to Film Forum was at the third incarnation, on Watts Street. I don't remember what movie I saw, but I do recall drinking coffee with my friends in the old, chrome, streetcar-style Moondance Diner afterward; the evening fulfilled my 20-something-Southern-girl expectations of a classic New York night, lifted from Woody Allen movies, and fermented my enthusiasm for making the city my home.

The Film Forum's film fests evoke that New York for me and that, as much as the movies themselves, may be why I'm drawn to Houston and Varick to sit in the dark for four hours and watch films I could see on DVD or Turner Classic Movies. It's mac-and-cheese, two eggs with bacon on a toasted roll, chicken pot pie... comfort food as satiating as any the Moondance served.